Sunday, July 3, 2011

I Love a Parade, but...

This picture was taken a year ago just around the corner from our house.This is Seward Street looking west toward downtown. It is the parade route for this "4th of July" City. As you can see, people "stake out claim" to a curb-side seat by tacking down or somehow anchoring their blanket well ahead of the actual 4:00pm starting time. We went down to the City Band Concert last evening and several blankets were already in place. In fact, we saw the first blanket down on Friday evening, 69 hours before the start of the parade. We received 0.40" of rain this morning and the sun is shining this afternoon. You can imagine what this does to the lawns. The earliest we have had people put down blankets on our lawn is to find them when we get up on the morning of the 4th. I have mellowed over the years but have explained to people that our lawn sprinklers came on automatically and wet their blanket. But, we have developed a good cadre of repeat customers. There may be as 50-75 people on our lawn and driveway for the parade and most of them are friends (or at least they are by the time they leave). Last year we had the experience of inviting a young mother with her daughter into the house to use the bathroom. We learned in visiting that she was the granddaughter of a fellow I played baseball with years ago. We have learned that the best way to cope with the parade going past our house is to relax, fly the flag, and enjoy it.

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About Me

My wife and I are enjoying the fruits of our labors after many years of federal and state agency service in the environmental field. We live in a small house in a small town near Lincoln, NE. We are fortunate in having our daughter and her husband living nearby. Our granddaughter, her husband, their daughter Sadie & son Jack also live in Seward. I have seen major league baseball games in all 30 current stadiums and have kept a daily diary or Journal for many, many years.